Tuesday, October 4, 2011

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this wonderful book. You’ll find yourself cheering them on at times and at other times wanting to pull them to your chest to comfort them as you would with any good friend. I say this because by the end of this book, I felt like I’d known these characters all of my life.

This book deals with the suicide of the Jamie and the effects of his sudden, unexplained death on the two men in his life, Darian and Matt. Starting with the funeral, the story then jumps to the back to the beginning and starts the telling of the events that leads to Jamie’s death. The main issues lying throughout this book are drug abuse, fear of coming out, being promiscuous, fear of commitment, being secretly in love with your best friend and dealing with familial homophobia. There’s something in here that most of us can easily identify with. So, if you want to read a deep, sexy, funny and often sad novel, go download When Love Is Not Enough from one of the usual ebook outlets or buy a physical copy at your friendly neighborhood gay bookstore.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Pierre Seel (8/16/23 – 11/25/05) was a gay Holocaust survivor and the only French person to have testified openly about his experience of deportation by the Nazis during World War II due to his homosexuality.

First of all, this isn’t so much a gay story as it a human story. If you’re looking for a hopeful, enlightening story about gay pride and secret romantic interludes between the gay prisoners in the camps, you won’t get it.

This memoir is dark, brooding and a bit dry for my taste. I have to be honest and say that I found myself struggling to finish it. The first half of the book is quite interesting but the telling of his later years is yawn-inducing. In the fifties (and still very much in the closet), Pierre marries a lady and begins a family. Three children later, twenty jobs later, bouts with alcoholism and addictions to nerve pills, they divorce and go their separate ways. Pierre quickly spirals into deep depression and stumbles through life until the early eighties when he meets the proper people and begins telling his story.

This book is a must for students of gay history. It was interesting to read about the stealth that had to be employed to facilitate gay relationships during that time. Some may find that this book isn’t “gay” enough. Pierre was very closeted and for the most part, glosses over the finer details of his intimate life or thoughts.

Perhaps the book would be more interesting if read in the language (French) it was written in.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

I loved this fun, beach-read type book. If you've ever wondered about the life & times of that handsome flight attendant that served you on your last flight, this is sooo the book for you. Can't wait for the sequel, Henri!